To say the parties don't trust each other is akin to describing the Antarctic as 'a bit nippy'.

"Do you know what the life expectancy of an Obama-Biden yard sign is 'round here?" a Tennessee Democrat asked me last weekend. "Two days. Doesn't matter, though. They just march straight back in here and buy another one, and that's another eight dollars for the campaign."

The odd thing is, I'd heard exactly the same story the previous week. Only that time, it was from a Republican.

To say the parties here don't trust each other is akin to describing the Antarctic as 'a bit nippy'. Each is convinced, completely and whole-heartedly, that the other is trying to screw them. "They're plotting to steal this election like they did in 2000 and they did in 2004," one Democrat said to me last week. When I reacted with surprise - surely the last victory, at least, was fair and square? - she just shook her head, disappointed that I could be so naive. "They stole the election in Ohio," she said firmly.

And it's true, there are plenty of stories of electoral shenanigans circulating. Republicans surrounding polling stations with volunteers in police uniforms, to put black people off voting. Democrats registering Mickey Mouse[3] to vote in Florida. And, in a stunt lifted straight from an old Onion[4]story, Republicans warning voters that, due to overwhelming demand, election day is to be split, and anyone thinking of voting for Obama should come to the polls on November 5th. Both parties are planning to flood polling stations with lawyers.

Yet when activists talk about a friend or parent who's voting for the other guy, they're more likely to roll their eyes indulgently than start foaming at the mouth.

You get the feeling that, when people demonize the other side, they're not talking about the neighbours or family members who happen to disagree with their politics. They're talking about them, these strange, shadowy figures who want to destroy their way of life by taking away their guns and forcing their kids into gay marriage, or, conversely, forcibly baptizing them and sending their kids to war.

Attempts to get past this, and actually understand what the other guys have to say, are depressingly few and far between. One is the Ohio politics blog[5], run jointly by Obama hugging liberal Kyle Kutuchief and arch conservative Ben Keeler. Despite disagreeing on just about everything, the two of them have, so far, managed to work together without accusing each other of being mentally ill. And both reckon their debates have made their own arguments stronger.

The catch, though, is that they can only do this because they were childhood friends before they were political enemies. "When Kyle called me in 2004 after John Kerry lost, I really felt bad for him. But not that bad," says Keeler. But he adds: "We couldn't have done it if we didn't already know each other."

Kutuchief agrees. "When I was in college, my professors would talk about the great political leaders arguing tooth and nail all day and then going out to have a beer," he says. "That concept seems lost on our generation."

If it wasn't lost, I suspect, this election would need a lot fewer lawyers.